Rishi Sunak Tightens New Visa Rules | UK Govt New Immigration Rules | Care, Dependent & Work visa
Home secretary James Cleverlyhad on Monday announced plans to cut migration to the UK by raising the minimum salary threshold for skilled worker visas from £26,200 to £38,700, putting the graduate visa route “under review”, banning overseas care workers from bringing dependants, axing the shortage occupation list and hiking the immigration health surcharge.”Only 25% of dependants are estimated to be in work, which means that a significant number are drawing on public services,” Cleverly said. Home Office data shows Indian nationals represent 38% of all dependants issued a work visa.
The curbs would impact the UK as much as they would hit the Indians, representatives of business and student associations cautioned. Shailesh Pathak, secretary general, FICCI, said the whole world was “looking at highly skilled Indian professionals”, and warned that the UK move to raise the salary threshold for foreign skilled workers would drive Indian professionals “almost certainly” to other economies. “This will discourage Indian companies doing business in the UK, since such companies employ both British and Indian professionals. Thus far, Indian professionals have contributed their expertise to address critical skill shortages in the UK. This may not continue in future,” Pathak said.
Amit Tiwari, national president of the Indian National Students Association, UK, said: “INSA shall be taking this matter up with the UK authorities. Indian students have a number of options for higher education. They add approximately £25 billion to the UK economy every year. The UK universities are dependent on them to stay afloat.” For the year ending Sept 2023, there were 133,237 sponsored study visas granted to Indians, the highest among all foreign nationals in Britain. Fearing that the graduate route, which was the “number one requirement of Indian students”, could be shortened or capped before the UK’s general election, Sanam Arora, founder and chair of the National Indian Students and Alumni Union, said the move would spell “an economic disaster for the UK and a bad outcome for Indian students”. Arora said it was “mind boggling” that these measures were being introduced when the UK had a massive skills gap to fill.
TOI understands it is only the care workers who will not be allowed to bring dependents and that Indian doctors and nurses will not be affected. However, Ramesh Mehta, president of the British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin, said: “It is not fair to invite anyone to work in the UK and not allow them to bring their family.” Pratik Dattani, managing director of global advisory firm EPG, said the government’s proposals were “driven entirely by internal Conservative Party politics”. The majority of the UK’s economic growth over the last year had come from higher levels of migration, without which, the UK would have been in a recession, he added. However, consultant surgeon Dr Rajinder Pal Singh, who immigrated to Britain from Odisha, has a different view, having seen first-hand the mounting pressures. “Working in the NHS, it is obvious to me that the burgeoning costs of healthcare are simply unsustainable. Therefore, a robust strategy is essential to stem the flow of immigration to allow appropriate allocation of resources,” he said.
